During a meeting at the White House on the evening of 4 August, President Johnson asked McCone, "Do they want a war by attacking our ships in the middle of the Gulf of Tonkin? Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964, FRUS, Vietnam, 1964, p. 603. Cruising twenty-eight miles offshore in international waters, Maddox was approached by the North Vietnamese. Both of these messages reached Washington shortly after 1400 hours EDT.
National Security Agency Although the total intelligence picture of North Vietnams actions and communications indicates that the North Vietnamese did in fact order the first attack, it remains unclear whether Maddox was the originally intended target. Aircraft from the Ticonderoga (CVA-14) appeared on the scene, strafing three torpedo boats and sinking the one that had been damaged in the battle with the Maddox. Mr. The North Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs made all this clear in September when it published a "Memorandum Regarding the U.S. War Acts Against the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in the First Days of August 1964." This is not the place to establish the final truth on the Gulf of Tonkin matter and certainly I am not the person to render the ultimate judgment. History is who we are and why we are the way we are.. Subsequent SIGINT reporting and faulty analysis that day further reinforced earlier false impressions. https://www.thoughtco.com/vietnam-war-gulf-of-tonkin-incident-2361345 (accessed March 4, 2023). They arrived on station overhead by 2100 hours. He then requested the passage of a resolution "expressing the unity and determination of the United States in supporting freedom and in protecting peace in Southeast Asia." Although North Vietnamese General Vo Nguyen Giap admitted in a 1984 discussion with Robert S. McNamara that the first attack was deliberate, he denied that a second attack had ever taken place. Then, everyones doubts were swept away when a SIGINT intercept from one of the North Vietnamese torpedo boats reported the claim that it had shot down two American planes in the battle area. Formerly an analyst with the Washington-based Asian Studies Center, Mr. Conboy is vice president of Lippo Group, a large financial services institution in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Dollar Bill . In any event, the attack took place in broad daylight under conditions of clear visibility. 14. They are part and parcel of a continuing Communist drive to conquer South Vietnam. Naval Institute. The three torpedo boats continued through the American barrage and launched their torpedoes at 1516. President Johnson himself apparently questioned the sailorsu0019 report of an attack. Two nearly identical episodes six weeks apart; two nearly opposite responses. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker.
WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN THE GULF OF TONKIN? Interview, authors with James Hawes, 31 March 1996. Then North Vietnams naval authorities either became confused or were seized by indecision. Subscribe to receive our weekly newsletter with top stories from master historians. Declassified NSA documents show that US intelligence members concealed relevant reports from Congress to push the narrative of a second attack. Forty-eight hours earlier, on Aug. 2, two US destroyers on patrol in the Gulf of Tonkin the Maddox and the Turner Joy were attacked by North Vietnamese boats. Neither Herricks doubts nor his reconnaissance request was well received, however. "13 As far as the State Department was concerned, there was no need to "review" the operations. ", "No," replied McCone. The World is a public radio program that crosses borders and time zones to bring home the stories that matter. Senate investigations in 1968 and 1975 did little to clarify the events or the evidence, lending further credence to the various conspiracy theories. Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident. Mr. Andrad is a Vietnam War historian with the U.S. Army Center of Military History, where he is writing a book on combat operations from 1969 through 1973. 426-436. In an effort to increase pressure on North Vietnam, several Norwegian-built fast patrol boats (PTFs) were covertly purchased and transferred to South Vietnam. Cookies collect information about your preferences and your devices and are used to make the site work as you expect it to, to understand how you interact with the site, and to show advertisements that are targeted to your interests. The Americans claimed they sank two torpedo boats and damaged a third, while the torpedo boats claimed to have shot down two American aircraft. Perhaps that is the most enduring lesson from Americas use of SIGINT in the Vietnam War in general and the Gulf of Tonkin Incident in particular. Herricks concerns grew as the SIGINT intercepts indicated that the North Vietnamese were concentrating torpedo boats off Hon Me Island, 25 nautical miles to his southwest. In July 1964, Operational Plan 34A was taking off, but during the first six months of this highly classified program of covert attacks against North Vietnam, one after the other, missions failed, often spelling doom for the commando teams inserted into the North by boat and parachute. As it turns out, Adm. Sharp failed to read to the Joint Chiefs the last line of the cable, whichread: Suggest a complete evaluation before any further actions.. The boats followed at their maximum speed of 44 knots, continuing the chase for more than 20 minutes. The subsequent North Vietnamese reporting on the enemy matched the location, course and speed of Maddox. Changing course in time to evade the torpedoes, the Maddox again was attacked, this time by a boat that fired another torpedo and 14.5-mm machine guns. This was granted, and four F-8 Crusaders were vectored towards Maddox's position. A U.S. Navy SEAL (Sea Air Land) team officer assigned to the SOG maritime operations training staff, Lieutenant James Hawes, led the covert boat fleet out of Da Nang and down the coast 300 miles to Cam Ranh Bay, where they waited out the crisis in isolation. . You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. Robert S. McNamara, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Times Books, 1995), pp. People are human and make mistakes, particularly in the pressure of a crisis or physical threat to those they support. However, planes from the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga (CVA-14) crippled one of the boats and damaged the other two. Quoted in Steve Edwards, "Stalking the Enemys Coast," U.S. 1, Vietnam 1964 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1992), p. 611. This was the only time covert operations against the North came close to being discussed in public. The Vietnam War buff will find it fascinating for its wealth of detail carefully set down in understated prose (a welcome relief, I might add, from the hysterical tone that marks much Vietnam War writing). While there was some doubt in Washington regarding the second attack, those aboard Maddox and Turner Joy were convinced that it had occurred. With that false foundation in their minds, the on-scene naval analysts saw the evidence around them as confirmation of the attack they had been warned about. NSA analysts from shore-based stations shared Herricks belief and transmitted an immediate warning to all major Pacific Theater commandsexcept to Herrick and Maddox. Send the First Troops to Vietnam? In turn, that means Such arguments are rooted in the information and documents released by Daniel Ellsberg and others, and were reinforced over the decades by anniversary interviews with some of the participants, including ships crewmen and officers. This along with flawed signals intelligence from the National Security Agency led Johnson to order retaliatory airstrikes against North Vietnam. And, of course, McNamara himself knew about the "South Vietnamese actions in connection with the two islands," but his cautiously worded answer got him out of admitting it. The Gulf of Tonkin incident, like others in our nation's history, has become the center of considerable controversy and debate. Holding their vector despite the gunfire, the boats rushed in, pouring 20-mm and 40-mm fire and 57-mm recoilless rifle rounds into their target. On 7 August, the Senate passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, allowing the administration greater latitude in expanding the war by a vote of 88 to 2. Hisfirst ship was USS Glennon (DD-840), a FRAM I destroyer, thesame class as Maddox. Captain John J. Herrick, Commander Destroyer Division 192, embarked in the Maddox, concluded that there would be "possible hostile action." A long-standing program, the Desoto patrols consisted of American warships cruising in international waters to conduct electronic surveillance operations. This was the first of several carefully worded official statements aimed at separating 34A and Desoto and leaving the impression that the United States was not involved in the covert operations.9 He has written numerous articles on Vietnam War-era special operations and is the author of two books on the war: Formerly an analyst with the Washington-based Asian Studies Center, Mr. Conboy is vice president of Lippo Group, a large financial services institution in Jakarta, Indonesia. The report also identifies what SIGINT couldand could nottell commanders about their enemies and their unreliable friends in the war. The North Vietnamese did not react, probably because no South Vietnamese commando operations were underway at that time. The historian here is obliged to deal with two basic considerations in offering up an accounting: the event itself -- that is, what actually happened there in the waters off North Vietnam in early August 1964; and the uses made of it by President Lyndon Johnson and his administration. Hickman, Kennedy.
Vietnam War: Gulf of Tonkin Incident - ThoughtCo There remains some disagreement among historians about the second (Aug. 4) incident, which involved the Maddox and another destroyer, the USS Turner Joy. In November of 2001, the LBJ Presidential library and museum released tapes of phone conversations with the President and then Defense Media Manipulation. 2. HistoryNet.com contains daily features, photo galleries and over 25,000 articles originally published in our nine magazines. Typically, the missions were carried out by a destroyer specially outfitted with sensitive eavesdropping equipment. Despite the on-scene commanders efforts to correct their errors in the initial after-action reports, administration officials focused instead on the first SIGINT reports to the exclusion of all other evidence. The Desoto patrol continued with another destroyer, the Turner Joy (DD-951), coming along to ward off further trouble. $22. This was almost certainly a reaction to the recent 34A raids. The Pyramid and All-Seeing Eye . U.S. SIGINT support had provided ample warning of North Vietnams intentions and actions, enabling the American ship to defend itself successfully. In response, the North Vietnamese boat launched a torpedo. The Taliban silenced him. After the Tonkin Gulf incident, the State Department cabled Seaborn, instructing him to tell the North Vietnamese that "neither the Maddox or any other destroyer was in any way associated with any attack on the DRV [Democratic Republic of Vietnam, or North Vietnam] islands." On 28 July, the latest specially fitted destroyer, the Maddox (DD-731), set out from Taiwan for the South China Sea. We still seek no wider war.. Four boats, PTF-1, PTF-2 (the American-made patrol boats), PTF-5, and PTF-6 (Nasty boats), were on their way to bombard a North Vietnamese radar installation at Vinh Son and a security post on the banks of the nearby Ron River, both about 90 miles north of the DMZ. The first Desoto Mission was conducted by USS Craig (DD-885) in March 1964. Historians still argue about what exactly happened in the Gulf of Tonkin in August of 1964. Joseph C. Goulden, Truth Is the First Casualty: The Gulf of Tonkin AffairIllusion and Reality (Chicago: Rand McNally & Co., 1969), p. 80. American aircraft flying over the scene during the "attack" failed to spot any North Vietnamese boats. The USS Maddox in the Gulf of Tonkin is shown in 1963. Like all intelligence, it must be analyzed and reported in context. To subscribe to Vietnam Magazine, click here! 313-314. Both countries were backing North Vietnam, but so far they were staying out of the conflict and the White House wanted to keep it that way. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Vietnam, 3 August 1964. Speculation about administration motives surrounding the Tonkin Gulf incident itself and the subsequent withholding of key information will probably never cease, but the factual intelligence record that drove those decisions is now clear. Carl Otis Schuster, U.S. Navy (ret.)